


XOXO

by mezzosaka



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-25 04:58:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17114942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mezzosaka/pseuds/mezzosaka
Summary: In a world where everything you write on yourself appears on your soulmate, Tamaki is bored.And when Tamaki is bored, Iori tends to have a hard time focusing in class.





	XOXO

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ackermanx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ackermanx/gifts).



> MERRY CHRISTMAS, [ERIN!!!!!!!!](https://twitter.com/axlotlols)
> 
> i'm your secret santa!!!!!!!!! I HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR GIFT!!!!!! it was so super fun to write!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There it was again!

Iori huffed, yanking down his shirt sleeve as the ink blossomed on his skin. His soulmate just  _ had  _ to start acting up when it was rather stuffy in the classroom. The heat was turned up pretty high, considering how cold it was outside, and any  _ sane  _ person would have their sleeves rolled up, too. Fortunately, his soulmate was at least sane enough to share the same idea, but unfortunately, his soulmate tended to get bored in class much too often for his own good.

It’s not like Iori didn’t know who his soulmate was—he knew  _ very  _ well that it was Tamaki Yotsuba, the boy who sat two rows down and slept across the hall from him back at the dorms. His classmates always gushed to him about how lucky he was to be so close to his soulmate so early, how adorable it was that they even got to be in the same class! In a way, they were right. It  _ was  _ rather lucky. Hell, his own brother was still trying to figure out who his soulmate was! And Iori thought Mitsuki always knew everything; it came as a shock when Iori found his soulmate first.

It was just that Tamaki could be rather distracting, especially when the lecture was boring. And Tamaki deemed many topics boring. Iori found puddings littered across his left arm multiple times a day, particularly during math and science. He seemed a little more interested in history, and literature just put him to sleep. Iori learned to anticipate it, but sometimes he just wanted to sit, arms bare, without worrying about his classmates  _ ooh _ ing and  _ ahh _ ing over them.

But it was much too warm. Iori rolled his sleeves back up, only to find even more puddings. One of them, the biggest one, held out an envelope stamped with a huge heart. The words  _ open it  _ were scrawled right above it, crammed between that pudding’s crown and another pudding’s feet.

_ Quit it,  _ Iori wrote back, quickly, with the only pen thick enough to draw on himself effectively. Their teachers were well aware of the fact that the two of them were soulmates—after all, it really wasn’t often that soulmates happened to be classmates as well—and if they wrote to each other too often, they were scolded. It’d happened before! Iori had turned bright red to the tips of his ears when their math teacher called them out, and Tamaki seemed completely unbothered by the way he wrote  _ You’re so cute like that, Iorin. _

Iori watched as the pudding’s face was slowly smeared away, and the happy face turned into a sad one. Tamaki wrote  _ please  _ in front of the  _ open it,  _ and slammed his pen down to punctuate the statement. Iori sighed, glancing up at the teacher. Her back was turned to the class, as she was writing out a sentence on the board, so Iori gave in.

_ OK _

There was hardly any room left to write anything else. Iori wasn’t sure how Tamaki was going to pull this off, but he supposed it would end with ink-stained fingers on Tamaki’s part. It was kind of… Okay, it was kind of cute how Tamaki would always have blue all over his fingertips from rubbing away the doodles all day. If Iori absolutely had to admit it, then it was most definitely one of the cutest things he’d ever been able to witness, but if no one would press too hard, then he’d keep it to himself. 

Sure enough, the pudding began to disappear. Iori glanced back to Tamaki’s desk; his tongue stuck out as he worked, first scrubbing away the doodles with what could either be spit or hand sanitizer, then drawing the next part. Iori made sure to look away before what he was doing was too obvious—and he may have been too late, judging by how he caught one of his classmate’s eyes as he turned to face forward again—but he was not so subtle as he kept looking down on his arm, eager to see what could possibly be in the envelope.

A few moments later, and Iori looked down to see a happy pudding next to a big heart. Iori whipped his head around immediately to find Tamaki staring at him with a toothy grin. It turned all of Iori’s insides to mush, really; he felt like he had momentarily shut down because of the sweet gesture.

“Izumi-kun.” 

Iori was jumpstarted. His teacher’s voice rang in his burning ears a little louder than usual, and he faced forward sheepishly. He was really in for it now! The teacher threatened to call home for the two of them if she caught them one more time. Even if calls home typically got rerouted to the dorm phone, it still wasn’t  _ good.  _ Iori wasn’t particularly interested in receiving an earful about responsibility from Mitsuki.

The teacher was  _ smiling  _ at him, like she was absolutely delighted that she’d caught them. “Could you please pick up reading where we left off?”

He couldn’t.

* * *

 

Tamaki sure had gotten an earful yesterday.

The whole walk home, Iorin lectured him about  _ responsibility  _ and  _ paying attention  _ and  _ not slacking off.  _ Honestly, he was starting to sound like Sou-chan. It was annoying! He loved Iorin to death, but he did  _ not  _ love Iorin’s lectures.

Those lectures, however, didn’t stop Tamaki from writing to Iorin again today. He couldn’t help that class was just so boring! He wanted to go home and dance or record a new song or do a photoshoot or do literally anything except the math problems on the board. Who needed math to be an idol, anyway? Didn’t Tsumugi do that kinda stuff?

He was glad the room temperature was a little more bearable today. Iorin had lectured him about that, too. It was troublesome to keep his sleeves down when it was so stuffy. But it wouldn’t be a problem today! Iorin could comfortably leave his sleeves their full length when the room felt like this.

So it’d be fine to write to him again, right?

He decided to make it simple. Even if he thought Iorin’s lectures were dumb, they still hurt to hear. He just wanted Iorin to shower him with the soft murmurs of affection and gentle kisses he was used to when they were alone, not grown-up words. So simple it was—Iorin could just ignore it if he wanted. A grid, with three rows of three.

Tamaki watched as Iorin flinched, glancing down at his arm as the marks appeared on his skin. He sure did look pretty like that. Iorin  _ always  _ looked pretty, but especially from where Tamaki sat. In the mornings, the sun hit him just right from the windows and made him glow, and in the afternoon, he always had such a nice and easy expression. Out of all of Idolish7, only Tamaki got to see this Iorin, and that made it special.

Iorin didn’t seem interested in playing with him, though. Disappointing, but understandable, and Tamaki guessed that maybe he  _ should  _ pay attention to the math lecture. Well, he wouldn’t participate, because numbers still weren’t his thing, but he’d listen at least.

Listening went well for a few minutes. Tamaki learned more than he had all day, but he was startled out of it by the familiar tickle on his arm that meant Iorin was writing back. He looked at Iorin just to see him putting his pen down, and on his arm he found a neat X right in the center of the grid.

Well, Tamaki preferred to play Xs, but if that’s what Iorin wanted, then so be it!

* * *

 

At the end of the day, both of their arms were riddled with more tic-tac-toe grids than Iori thought possible. Most of them overlapped, and even though he’d been able to tell which was which when they’d been playing, it was nearly impossible now. They’d each have to scrub their arms for a while before dinner, but it’d been worth it. It was actually kind of thrilling to play games with Tamaki behind the teacher’s back.

“Um,” Iori started, just as they started to take the long way home. “Sorry for yelling at you yesterday.”

Tamaki shrugged. “‘S fine. I love you even if you yell at me sometimes.”

The long way was starting to become their usual route. Instead of going straight through the city, it took them winding around a park. Sometimes they stopped in the park, sat on the swings for a little while before heading home late under the excuse of needing to finish something up for student council or math olympics or errands for a teacher. It was nice and relaxing after a good day’s work at school, and when they didn’t have any idol work immediately after, it was a good route to take.

“I-I love you, too.”

It was still embarrassing for Iori to say, even though they’d both been saying it for a little while now. It still brought a smile to his face. He meant it, too, every single time. That was really what got him so flustered; he  _ meant  _ it, even when he was lecturing him or telling him to shut up in the middle of class. 

“When we wash this off,” Tamaki said, “I want a rematch!”

Ah, that was what would snap Iori out of his lovey-dovey haze. They’d played for the entire second half of the day, and Iori had  _ clearly  _ won best twenty-two out of forty-three.

“Not in a million years!” Iori snapped. “Especially not tomorrow. There’s a test tomorrow, and if either of us are caught writing to each other, then we’ll be punished for cheating!”

In an instant, everything returned to normal.

(They played again all throughout dinner, and then until bedtime. And Iori woke up to a hastily scrawled  _ mornin’  _ grid, and they played up until the moment of their exam.)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/mezzosaka)


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